Another trout opening has come and gone. I took my grandkids for their yearly trout fishing trip to a small South Gippsland stream where they managed to catch a couple of fish.

The scene was set – cloudy and overcast, the weather was just perfect, with good stream flow – the only thing missing were the fish! Back in the 70’s and 80’s, the inland mountain streams were teeming with fish, with a trout fishery that was near equal to Tassie. My brother and I would do a couple of yearly trips to King River at Pineapple Flat, just wading the river and spinning. Back then, fish 2-4kg were fairly common and to catch and release 100 plus fish on a weekend was standard Today it’s a different story, the fish are much smaller and few and far between. What is becoming clear is that the majority of fishers are looking for trout and can’t find them. Fisheries pour millions of fish into our impoundments but haven’t stocked our trout streams. Once upon a time they stocked all of our rivers, something that needs to occur again with obvious benefits to anglers, and small country town tourism generated income.

On the beaches, lots of good salmon are around weighing up to 2kg. Baxter and Williamson are both fishing well when the weather permits. Surf poppers and blue bait seem to be the go at the moment and now, with the weather warming up at last, there should be a few gummies about. Fish for gummies just on dusk with a rising tide.

Below the bridge, Cleeland’s Bight is still producing some good-sized calamari and some better quality whiting have started showing up. Outside the Entrance, quite a few medium-sized couta are about which are excellent to use as snapper bait.

There have been reports of schools of snapper entering Westernport. Hopefully this year will be a better season than previous years. The whiting should be starting to show up in numbers but as it was the coldest winter for 20 years they could be a little later than usual. Reports of calamari in all the usual places, if you want to bag a few you need to be on the water at daylight.

The calamari are on the go but not in big numbers yet. Snook are about for fishos wanting to target them. Whiting are yet to turn up.